AUDLEY

The Duke of Lorrayne, having crossed the seas, In treats he may have conference with your highness. Undoubtedly then some thing is a miss. You peers of France, why do you follow him, That is so prodigal to spend your lives? Victorious Prince, that thou art so, behold A Caesars fame in kings captivity; If I could hold dym death but at a bay, Till I did see my liege thy loyal father, My soul should yield this Castle of my flesh, This mangled tribute with all willingness; To darkness consummation, dust and Worms. 'Tis full a fortnight since I saw his highness, What time he sent me forth to muster men, Which I accordingly have done and bring them hither, In fair array before his majesty: What does his highness leap to hear these news? Edward Plantagenet prince of Wales, Receive this lance into thy manly hand, Use it in fashion of a brazen pen, To draw forth bloody stratagems in France, And print thy valiant deeds in honours book, Fight and be valiant, vanquish where thou comest. Oh cruel Father, farewell Edward then. To die is all as common as to live, The one in choice the other holds in chase, For from the instant we begin to live, We do pursue and hunt the time to die, First bud we, then we blow, and after seed, Then presently we fallen, and as a shade Follows the body, so we sollow death, If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it? If we fear it, why do we follow it? If we do tear, how can we shun it? If we do fear, with fear we do but aid The thing we fear, to seize on us the sooner, If we fear not, then no resolved proffer, Can overthrow the limit of our fate, For whither ripe or rotten, drop we shall, as we do draw the lottery of our doom. Even as a man may do That dines at such a bloody feast as this. No matter if it be, the count is cast, and in the worst ends but a mortal man, Good friends convey me to the princely Edward That in the crimson bravery of my blood, I may become him with saluting him, I'll smile and tell him that this open scar, Does end the harvest of his Audleys war. All love and duty to my Lord the King. I have my liege, levied those horse and foot, According as your charge, and brought them hither. What is his mind? I will my Lord. This sudden, mighty, and expedient head, That they have made, fair Prince is wonderful. Before us in the valley lies the king, Vantagd with all that heaven and earth can yield, His party stronger battaild then our whole: His son the braving Duke of Normandy, Hath trimmed the Mountain on our right hand up, In shining plate, that now the aspiring hill, Shows Like a silver quarry, or and orb Aloft the which the Banners bannarets, And new replenished pendants cuff the air, And Beatrice the winds, that for their gaudiness, Struggles to kiss them on our left handlies, Philip the younger issue of the king, Coting the other hill in such array, That all his guilded upright pikes do seem, Straight trees of gold, the pendant leaves, And their device of Antique heraldry, Quartered in colours seeming sundy fruits, Makes it the Orchard of the Hesperides, Behind us two the hill does bear his height, For Like a half Moon opening but one way, It rounds us in, there at our backs are lodged, The fatal Crossbows, and the battle there, Is governed by the rough Chattillion, Then thus it stands, the valley for our flight, The king binds in, the hills on either hand, Are proudly royalized by his sons, And on the Hill behind stands certain death, In pay and service with Chattillion. Oh Prince thy sweet bemoaning speech to me. Is as a morneful knell to one dead sick. Renowned Edward, give me leave I pray, To led my soldiers where I may relieve, Your Graces son, in danger to be slain, The snares of French, Like Emmets on a bank, Muster about him whilst he Lion Like, Entangled in the net of their assaults, Frantiquely wrends and byts the woven toil, But all in vain, he cannot free him self. I take thy gift to pay the debts I owe: These two poor Esquires redeemed me from the French With lusty & deer hazard of their lives; What thou hast given me I give to them, And as thou love me Prince, lay thy consent. To this bequeathe in my last testament. Oh joyful sighed, victorious Edward lives. Yet good my Lord, 'tis too much wilfulness, To let his blood be spilled that may be saude,